


katabasis

by wolfchasing



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Adventure, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Katabasis, M/M, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-28 06:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13897950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchasing/pseuds/wolfchasing
Summary: katabasis - a descent into the underworld, with the particular intent of retrieving lost knowledge or the soul of one who has perished.





	1. Chapter 1

He wanted to be alone. These days, alone was Paul’s default state of being. Six months on from the mirror universe and from Hugh’s death, Paul never spent much time anywhere that wasn’t his quarters or his lab.

Michael and Tilly had tried to pull him out of the funk – and to be honest, he more than appreciated the effort they went to. That little part of him that spoke with Hugh’s doctor voice told him that socialisation was key to combating depression. But sometimes it was just too much.

Even six months later, the crew would still be giving him looks of pity and sympathy whenever they saw him. It was more than a little grating.

It was why he was now holed up in the cultivation bay. There had been a small incident in engineering, and he’d had to call medical to attend to one of his staff members. He’d slipped up. In the commotion, he’d attempted to request for Hugh to come down to engineering.

He had realised what happened the instant the words escaped his mouth, and he’d corrected himself to call for the CMO instead, but still, the responder and his staff had heard the mistake.

The second everything had been cleaned up and his injured staff member had been healed, he had escaped into the spore bay, ostensibly to “take some very important readings about the status of the spore germination rate!”

Not at all subtle, and Paul knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. At that moment, he didn’t care.

The instant the doors closed, Paul dropped the PADD and made a beeline for one of the largest mushrooms held within the bay.

It loomed over him, the basidiae drooping down around him in a strange simulation of a weeping willow. The entire bay was a place of solace for a man like Paul, but this place was especially nice. There was a small clearing around the large mushroom, and one of the members of his team had placed several large cushions at the base of the mushroom. It was a popular place for people to sit and observe the flows of the spores, as well as a place for people to take a break.

Paul and Hugh had often taken advantage of the little place to have quiet picnics and afternoons to themselves. A standing date, every Tuesday afternoon, to just be together, relax, and pretend they weren’t fighting a soul crushing war.

He heavily dropped himself into one of the cushions, leaning back against the giant stem of the mushroom, pulling his legs up to his chest. The lack of Hugh’s presence at his side was like missing an arm.

God, he missed Hugh. Twenty-three years of being together, twenty of which being married, they had still been as in love as any ridiculous teenage couple. Life on a starship was not easy, and life at war was even worse, but before the mirror universe, at least Paul had known that he had his husband to back to at the end of each shift. No longer having that stability and love was tearing him apart. They had been so thoroughly integrated into each other's lives that every single thing he did reminded him of Hugh, and being so forcefully reminded of his loss at all hours was  _painful._

Unwanted tears began to fall down his face, and Paul angrily swiped at them, forcing himself to look up at the luminescent spores floating gaily through the air.

He didn’t want to think on this. He could save his grief for later. The excuse to escape into the spore bay wasn’t just an excuse – he genuinely had work to do in here. It just wasn’t Starfleet mandated or anything to do with the spore germination levels.

At the end of the war, Starfleet had put a halt on anything to do with Paul’s highly illegal self-experimentation. Out of consideration for the fact that he had been essentially pushed into it by the acting captain, that he was the only one altered, and that it had been done in service of the war, they hadn’t charged him according to the Eugenics Act, but still, all research had been stopped.

Which was genuinely disappointing to Paul. During the war, he’d only had the time to investigate his new symbiosis with the mycelial network in relation to the spore drive. Since encountering the Tardigrade, he’d theorised that there were many possible ways to interact with the network, but he’d never had the chance to explore it himself. He and Hugh had been talking about starting a joint research project on the effects of the Tardigrade DNA on a human being after the war was done, but… well. And with Starfleet’s moratorium on the research, he hadn’t been able to learn anything about the changes that he had wrought upon his own body.

He already knew he could exist ever so slightly outside of the normal passage of time, thanks to Harry Mudd, and he knew that he could catch glimpses of possible futures, but those had been unintentional side effects. Who even knew what he could do if he intentionally tried to tap into the network without the aid of the spore drive?

He sat up properly, legs crossed, back straight, palms facing up, and began to retreat into his own mind, following those familiar connections to the network. It was certainly harder without the spore drive to guide him, but nonetheless, he was able to connect.

The last thing he saw with his real eyes was a massive cloud of spores descending on him, surrounding him completely.

        

* * *

         

He never tired of seeing the network spread around him. Pulsing, beating lines of pure light connected everything living in the room. Thousands – millions of these beams of light were emanating from his own body, connecting to the spores floating around the room. Now that he was using that _other_ sense that connected him to _everything_ , he could see the currents they drifted on. They seeped through the walls, ignoring all other matter, pulsing in and out of existence with little regard for boundaries.

He stood from the cushion on the ground – and unlike his previous jaunt into the network, he could see his _real_ body still on the ground; eyes wide open and covered with a milky white film; palms up, with reams of spores dancing in the space around him.

_Fascinating._

He stepped carefully around his body, but soon realised it wasn’t necessary to take that care, as he too was passing through matter like it didn’t exist.

Paul reached up and pulled his arm through the air, watching and feeling a slight tingle as he just passed right through the spores.

_Astral projection,_ he thought to himself, for want of a better term. He began to walk around the spore bay, delighting in the experience of moving around weightlessly. He reached the door to the main engineering room and hesitated. Could he just walk through the ten-centimetre thick steel? He reached out as if he was going to put his hand against the door, feeling no resistance as he made contact. His hand just fell through as if there were nothing there. A strange tingle ran along his nerves, but it wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

Taking a deep breath, Paul walked completely through the door, unable to help himself from tensing as his face made contact with the steel. It was a peculiar sensation - his nerves were singing as his form passed through the solid matter, but he was no worse for wear.

On the other side of the door, the concentration of spores in the air was far less than what he had been experiencing back in the cultivation bay – but considering that usually there were _zero_ spores visible in the engineering room, it was quite impressive. Seeing legitimate, tangible evidence of the spread of the mycelial network never failed to delight him,

His team were sat at their stations, most of them working away quite happily. He smiled ever so slightly. He hadn’t thought much of them back at the beginning of their journey aboard the discovery, but they had all proven themselves and their competence in some way. A few of them – the ones that were tasked with monitoring the status of the cultivation bay – were frowning at their screens ever so slightly. Tilly, now in the gold of a command-track ensign, was looking over at him in concern.

No, not at him. Her eyes were turned in his direction, but they weren’t focused on him – it was like she was looking right through him.

_So, I can’t be seen. This is... interesting._

He walked slowly across the room and stood behind one of the staff members assigned to monitoring the spore bay. The readings on the screen weren’t too abnormal – it was certainly registering higher-than-normal levels within the room, but nothing that he would have been too concerned about.

Paul moved throughout the room, peering over the shoulders at the workstations of his team, revelling in the chance to see them working without his admittedly stressful presence around them. He knew they all still remembered how he had been before this mycelial connection forced him into embracing emotions he had preferred to save only for Hugh.

But now, he was quite satisfied to learn that even without his presence forcing them into work, they were all still making exemplary progress on both their individual research projects, and their combined study on the mycelial network. He had a good team - Starfleet had sent him the very best, and he was proud of each of them.

For a moment, he stood in front of the spore chamber, feeling simultaneous pride and dread at the sight of it. It had been the site of so many advances in his research – it was here that he had helped change their fundamental understanding of physics. But now, the chamber was only a place of pain and harsh memories. It was the place where he had last seen Hugh alive and happy.

He turned away from it quickly, blinking back tears, and caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye – something moving swiftly away from him and through the door of the cultivation bay. His heart fell into his stomach at the flash of white and warm brown skin.

“Hugh?” he whispered weakly, taking an aborted step towards the figure. _It’s just a mirage – you’re just seeing what you want to see. Hugh is dead._

It just looked and moved so much like Hugh. Judging by the way the spores interacted with the figure, it was obvious that it too was existing within the context of the network.

He didn’t know if the manifestation of Hugh that he had encountered in the mycelial network before had actually been his husband – but he’d been under the impression that, real or not, it was the last time he’d ever see Hugh. Their goodbyes had just felt so final.

For the sake of his own sanity, he had to believe it wasn’t him – that this mycelial space he was in was playing tricks on his mind, playing off his grief.

But even still, that meant there was some sentient, suspicious element to the network, and well, if it was trying to manipulate him, he _had_ to investigate. He started back towards the cultivation bay, the ambient spores in the air parting as he walked through the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tilly stand up and begin walking in the direction of the bay as well, but he was too singularly focused on his pursuit to pay her any mind.

He practically dove through the door, emerging into the forest on the other side. Now that he had moved through the shock of seeing Hugh, all Paul could feel was the purest anger. His work was supposed to be his haven from this kind of manipulative, emotional bullshit. The fact that whatever it was was using his  _dead husband's face_ to taunt him was beyond the pale. Grief abandoned him, and he was now only feeling rage.

He stalked through the forest, watching the form of “Hugh” disappear through the mushrooms ahead of him. Worry began to eat at him as he realised that they were heading in the direction of the little clearing that he had left his body in. For the first time, he wondered if he was in danger.

Eventually, he reached the clearing. “How _dare_ you,” he seethed as he burst through a particularly dense pack of mushrooms. He blinked in shock as he realised there was nothing there but his own physical form.

Paul stepped through to stand in front of his limp body, noting that now he had a thin line of blood dripping from his nose. Paul frowned down at himself, becoming slowly aware of a mild pain in the front of his head. _That’s… really not good._

“Paul.”

He started, feeling shock take hold of his heart. It sounded exactly like Hugh when he was stressed. _It’s not real._ He slowly spun around to face the facsimile of his lover that had come to taunt him.

“You’re not him,” he said mulishly, and he could feel tears building at the corners of his eyes despite his best efforts. “Hugh is dead.”

The apparition smiled the same pained smile that Hugh always had when he was concerned, and oh god, didn't that hurt to see again. Hugh lifted his arms, taking Paul’s face into his hands, and Paul had to bite his lip in shock. Every callus was in exactly the right place as Hugh caressed his face, checking for fractures or abrasions. It was Hugh - only his dear doctor could fill an action with such simultaneous love and doctorly concern.

Paul’s hand reached up to grip Hugh’s, and the tears were flowing freely now. “Hugh,” he whispered brokenly.

“I love you so, so much.” Hugh’s thumb brushed at one of the tears, tender and loving. A moment passed where all they could do was stare into each other's eyes, but then Hugh’s features hardened, his hands moving towards Paul’s chest. “I love you, but you can’t be here. Please, do _not_ come back.”

Paul frowned and attempted to reach out to his husband. “Hugh, are you trapped?”

Something rustled in the mushrooms behind them – it was Tilly, pushing through the stems and rushing to Paul’s real body. “Oh my god, Stamets? Lieutenant? Oh my god oh my god, Paul, you’re in the network, what the fu - heck.” She gripped his body and pulled out her PADD.

Hugh’s eyes suddenly widened in fear, and Paul's heart broke to see it. “You need to GO.”

There was something looming behind Hugh – something massive and dark and completely incomprehensible in shape, emanating a tangible aura of danger and _hatred._ It was reaching for them with wickedly sharp claws – no, around Hugh, around Paul’s astral form, and towards Paul’s limp body.

_“GO!”_ Paul had rarely heard his dear, soft-spoken doctor yell, but he absolutely _roared_ the word. It echoed around the room, the urgency amplified by the reverberation of the sound. Hands shoved at Paul’s chest, and he fell back, feeling the familiar rush of the mycelial network as he was pushed back towards his body. The last thing he could see was Hugh, spinning around to bravely face the monster, his arms coming up to bat away at the claws reaching around him.

Paul blinked his real eyes rapidly, forcing away the dryness. He took several deep breaths, and could hear Tilly gasp next to him, surprised by his sudden awakening.

He looked up, his own arms coming up to try and defend against the monster that he could still feel reaching for him – but there was nothing there.

No Hugh, no monster, no disturbed mushrooms. For a single moment, he could see a concentration of spores in the air, forming the vague shape of a man facing in his direction.

“Ensign Tilly to medbay – two for emergency transport!”

As the light of the transport swirled around them, Paul could see the figure raise an approximation of an arm, as if it were waving goodbye.

The world turned to darkness as the medbay materialised around them, and Paul knew no more.


	2. Chapter 2

Awareness returned to him slowly.

It was like he was pulling himself out of a rough ocean – the dregs of unconsciousness clung to him like heavy drops of saltwater threatening to pull him back under. Paul fought against the instinct to return to sleep and forced himself to focus on the sounds around him.

It was the medbay, he was positive of that. He could hear the gentle, idling hum of a large regenerator on the far side of the room. Soft, regular beeps emitted from just to his right – likely the monitor displaying his vital signs. A deep breath through his nose brought the familiar scents of disinfectant and medicines to the fore, the smell burning his nose ever so slightly.

To his left, he could vaguely hear two voices murmuring to each other – Burnham and the CMO, Pollard.

He reached out with his tongue to wet his surprisingly dry lips, and attempted to lever himself into a sitting position on the bed, but was thwarted by a sharp pain in his upper left arm. Paul let out an unwilling grunt of pain at the unexpected feeling.

The conversation to his left halted, and he felt a small hand grip his lower right arm, just below the cybernetic implant.

“Lieutenant?”

Paul opened his eyes and found himself face to face with a surprisingly rough looking Tilly. Usually rosy cheeked and happy, it was quite a shock to see her with her hair flying out of the neat bun with dark circles dwelling under her eyes.

There was a second where all she did was stare at him rather disconcertingly, before she gently threw her arms around his shoulders and drew him int a very loose hug. “You scared the hell out of me,” she murmured into his shoulder.

Oh, this was weird. But nice, too. Over the months, Tilly had become more than just a colleague and subordinate. Her innate understanding of the mycelial network, her pure enthusiasm for science, and her ability to see the bright side in everything had proven her to be an outstanding member of his team. Rather than grating on him like it used to, her upbeat personality had helped him beyond belief in the time since the mirror universe, and he had found himself seeking out her kind company more than once. He would say that these days, they were friends. Maybe not terribly close, thanks to the trappings of rank, but still.

Evidently, Tilly felt the same. She pulled back, and upon deeming him well enough, gently slapped his left shoulder. “You went into the network! Without the reaction cube! What happened!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but the sudden onslaught of memory stopped him. He’d accessed the network without the aid of the spore drive, he had wandered around outside of his body in real space, he’d encountered some Lovecraftian horror and… _Hugh._

Hugh was _alive._ His consciousness was trapped in the network with whatever that creature had been, but he was alive, somewhere.

Paul just started laughing uncontrollably out of pure relief. It felt like some massive unknown weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was sore and exhausted, but he felt _good._ Slowly, the laughter changed into half-broken sobs of relief. Tilly and Michael were undoubtedly exchanging concerned looks, but honestly, he didn’t care.

“I’m going to sedate him,” Pollard said, and Paul could see her prepare a hypospray to attack him with. He reigned in the sobbing laughter and held his hand out to halt her progress.

“No, no, sorry, I’m good.” Paul let out a deep breath, fighting to restore some peace to his body. “I’m good.”

Not one of them looked convinced, but Pollard put the sedative away. “You need to tell me exactly what happened, Lieutenant.” Paul had never seen Pollard look so grave.

He took a moment and considered the three women surrounding him. If he told them that he was deliberately attempting to access the network, Pollard would be immediately unimpressed. She had been incredibly vocal in her disapproval for Paul’s engagement in genetic manipulation and had been very much in favour of Starfleet’s decision to halt Paul's personal research into whatever was happening to his body.

If she were to find out he was doing this intentionally, she would never allow him back into the spore cultivation bay. He would be permanently grounded for violating Starfleet’s direct order.

He would never be allowed back into the network, and never able to see Hugh again.

Oh. Now, there was a thought. He hadn’t yet contemplated the consequences of Hugh’s continued existence, too busy being thrilled by the fact that he had survived. Now that he was thinking about it, there was no way he could ever leave his husband to stay in the network, not if there were any way to retrieve him.

He had to lie to Pollard, for Hugh’s sake.

“I was resting,” Paul said shortly, and he could see Burnham lift her eyebrow in scepticism. “I was resting in the bay, and I was… thinking about Hugh.” Not entirely a lie. “I… started meditating. Hugh taught me to do it, years ago.” Absently, he played with his fingers, feeling tension and pain building in his left hand. “And it’s like… I just _fell_ into the network. I’ve never done anything like that before – we never even theorised it was possible without the use of the reaction cube.”

Tilly frowned, and Paul realised his error immediately. Months ago, before everything had happened, Tilly, Hugh, and himself had been sitting in engineering, throwing around increasingly fantastical ideas about what he could possibly do with his newfound connection to the mushrooms, and the concept of wandering the network without the aid of the ship had been one of her ideas. For a moment, it looked like she was going to speak up and refute his claim, but she must have seen something in the look he shot at her.

Pollard moved forward, pulling a penlight from her pocket and shining it into his eyes. “This was unintentional?” She moved it from side to side, shining it in one eye, then the other.

“Entirely.” He flinched away from the light, attempting to bat away at her hand. “I know what happened last time I was trapped in the network, and what happened to my brain. I do _not_ want to go through that again.” Again, not entirely false – the Starfleet doctors assigned to his case back on Earth were still attempting to decipher the damage that had been done to his frontal lobe, and he truly did not want to hurt himself further.

Burnham tilted her head back, considering him, and yes, he could see the scepticism on her face. “What did you see in the network?”

He couldn’t tell them about Hugh, or the monster. Not yet. Pollard would never believe him, and she would certainly attempt to hold him in medbay out of concern for his mental well being.

“It was like I was walking around the ship, but my body was still behind me on the ground.” Another partial truth.

“Like, what, astral travel?” Tilly said, sounding simultaneously fascinated and horrified. “You were like, walking around the engineering room? Could you – could you see _us?_ Like, were you spying on us?”

Michael shot her a look, and Paul couldn’t help but smile at the very typically Tilly response. “Yes, Ensign, exactly like astral travel. I walked around, but I couldn’t interact with anything physically. I stepped out into the main engineering room, and saw you walking into the bay, so I went back to my own body. That’s when you found me.”

Michael frowned at Paul, and he could see her mind working overtime. “I know that astral travel has been documented in some of the psionic capable races of the Federation – but I’ve never known even psi-positive humans to be capable of it.”

The smile that Paul directed at her was wry and bitter. “Well, I’m not entirely human anymore, am I.”

Michael inclined her head in his direction, with a fleeting expression of apology flashing across her face.

Pollard continued to check his vital signs in an old-fashioned manner – checking his pulse, his ears, his eyes, and his respiration – before stepping back to face him.

“Well, whatever you may have done, I can’t find any sign of damage or abnormalities on my scans or in my examination.” Pollard regarded him sternly, looking directly into his eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”

He nodded, and lifted his left arm to wiggle his hand in a so-so motion, ignoring the pain. He decided to not tell her about it, as he had is own suspicions as to it's origin."Tired, definitely, but otherwise no more banged-up than usual. How long was I knocked out for?"

Tilly bit her lip. “Fourteen hours, sir. It’s just passed 0700.”

Paul looked at her incredulously. “Have you been here this whole time?”

She nodded slowly, uncharacteristically shy. “When you were in a coma the last time, it was the _worst._ I couldn’t let you go through that alone, again.”

Michael rolled her eyes at Tilly's tone. "You're underselling yourself, Tilly. Her knowledge of the spores is second only to your own, Lieutenant. She has been here assisting the doctor in your recovery."

Tilly looked down, bashful, and Paul’s lips twitched in a smile again. “Yeah, well, that too.” She looked up very suddenly into Paul’s eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, I hope that’s not like, creepy or awkward or anything? Because like, I really appreciate you and I was so, so worried, and I couldn’t really sleep knowing you were hurt, and –” Paul held up a hand to cut her off.

“Maybe a little bit, but it's appreciated nonetheless, Ensign.” He looked up at Pollard. “Am I good to go?”

She looked stern and disapproving. “Medically, there is nothing wrong with you, other than the exhaustion, and you do not need to remain in the medbay for that.” She moved over to a console and began to tap out commands into a program. “As we are in warp, I cannot contact the team assigned to your… alteration, and the captain does not agree with my recommendation to drop out of warp to make the call.” A few more commands, and she viciously slapped a button on her console. “I have sent some instructions to your PADD, and to the captain.” She turned and faced Paul, and he could see the disapproval burning in her eyes. “I do not want you entering the spore bay until we make contact with the medical team. This can not happen again, Stamets, unintentionally or not.”

Paul reared up, anger burning through his entire being at her words. He was so _frustrated_ at being shut out of research about his own damn body. Six months of hearing _nothing,_ of being foisted off, told to not pay any mind to his own body, of making absolutely zero progress into finding a substitute for his role in the spore drive, and he was so _fucking_ sick of it.

He opened his mouth to argue, but Pollard cut him off. “You agreed to this, Paul, when you submitted yourself to Starfleet’s regulations on this matter. I am _worried.”_ And she genuinely was – concern was ringing through her voice. “Please, do not enter the spore chamber or the reaction cube or contact the network in any way.”

Paul swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Fine.” He fussily buttoned the collar of his shirt and made to stand up. “Is that all?”

Pollard shook her head. “Not quite. I want you to return to your quarters and _rest.”_ She gestured at Tilly and Michael. “They have offered to assist and observe you until we can drop out of warp.” With that, Pollard turned away from them, walking back towards her office at the rear of the medbay.

Paul levelled a glare at his two friends. Tilly looked bashful, but Michael met his gaze with a cool look.

Wordlessly, he stalked out of the medbay, making a beeline for his quarters, Tilly and Michael following in his wake.

As he walked, he felt his anger dissipate, replaced slowly by weariness and pain.

He couldn’t really be mad at Tilly and Michael – he knew that they meant well, and he had given them a massive scare. They had expressed in the past just how terrifying it had been when he had been trapped in the network, and he was certain that seeing him with clouded eyes again had freaked Tilly out more than she was letting on.

The long walk to his quarters only served to make him think further about what he had seen in the network.

Seeing Hugh again had been good. He had been scared and stressed to hell and back, but he had looked good. Seeing him had made Paul realise that he’d been forgetting some small details about his face - like the way Hugh’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, or how one of his eyebrows quirked when he was stressing out.

He had to get Hugh back. He needed to figure it out.

But… what was that thing that had attacked them? Paul had never seen anything like it. It had looked like it was coated in roiling black oil, with no definite physical form. It had been incomprehensible and ominous, and it had radiated hatred and anger. When it had moved to attack him, the spores had parted around it like they were adverse to it's very existence. It was nothing like the aimless decay that he had witnessed in the network in the mirror universe – whatever the thing was, it had purpose and intent.

And it had wanted him. Not his… _soul,_ as it had wandered around the network, but his actual, physical body as it laid dormant and empty.

It was a disturbing thought.

He came to his quarters and opened the door with swipe of his hand on the console. He stood at the door, and bowed mockingly, gesturing for Tilly and Michael to enter.

He could see them looking around the space with interest. His quarters were quite large when compared to typical Starfleet lodging. His position as the head of engineering afforded him the benefits of a large space, and, well, he hadn’t yet been asked to move out of couple’s quarters by the quartermaster.

Paul hadn’t bothered to remove signs of Hugh from his home. He had thought about it early on, back when the mere sight of Hugh’s face had been enough to break his resolve for a day. He’d even gotten as far as beginning to pack away some of Hugh’s belongings. Packing away those little aspects of their shared life had felt too much like Paul was forcing himself to forget, and that was taking it too far.

He’d moved all their little trinkets back to their spaces around the room, placed their photographs in to places of pride, and had moved the box filled with Hugh’s clothing into the base of their cupboard, entirely unwilling to donate the pure matter of the items to the ship’s recycling unit.

He watched as Tilly and Michael looked around his quarters with varying degrees of interest. Neither had been into his quarters before – many crew members liked to keep their homes separate from their work lives, especially since they were so confined and close-knit on this vessel. He was no different. He and Hugh had a policy to never let their work intrude into their space. Paul eyed the massive stack of reports and PADDs that had piled up onto his little coffee table and sighed to himself. He’d let that policy fall to the wayside.

Tilly stopped her curiosity driven exploration of his quarters and turned to him, planting her hands on her hips. “Ok, you lied.”

Ah, so, they were to go straight into it, then. He watched as Michael navigated herself to stand beside Tilly, and she stood with her arms sternly crossed, creating a united front of expectation.

He’d known back in the medbay that there was no chance of them believing his lies – they knew him too well and were too in tune with his bullshit to believe that he’d ever do something so important _unintentionally._

Paul shot them a small, tight smile, and moved towards the bathroom, unbuttoning and unzipping his shirt as he went. His arm was still causing him pain, and now that he was free from the clutches of medical, he could investigate it himself.

He stood in front of the sink and ran some hot water. “Yes. I lied,” he said, and watched them appear in the mirror behind him. Now able to see his own face, he was shocked at how he looked. His eyes were bloodshot – likely an unfortunate side effect of his eyes clouding over, and the space between his nose and his lips was tinged with a rusty red shade. He stuck his tongue out and licked at the space, grimacing when tasted the traces of dried blood. Someone had tried to clean him up, but it obviously hadn’t been a priority while he was knocked out.

Shaking his head, he stuck his hands under the faucet, and splashed some water into his face. He scrubbed at his face vigorously, trying to clear away the vestiges of his descent into the network. He opened his eyes to see Michael and Tilly staring at him expectantly.

He rolled his eyes and continued his usual ablutions, ignoring them as he brushed his teeth, fixed his hair, and generally cleaned himself up as best as he could with an audience.

Finally, Michael spoke. “You figured out how to enter the mycelial network without the aid of the reaction cube. _How_ did you do that?”

Paul shook his head and gingerly took off his shirt, taking care not to jostle his arm. “I told most of the truth. I was in the spore bay, I was… thinking about Hugh, and I needed to meditate. It’s just that I did so with the intent of entering the network.”

“But that’s so dangerous!” Tilly seemed appalled, and Michael looked like she agreed with the sentiment. “How did you know it was going to work? Why didn’t you ask one of us to help? What if something had gone wrong?”

He spun around to face them, now clad only in his trousers and undershirt. “I knew it wouldn’t. I had a theory.”

Michael raised an eyebrow, as if to say, ‘well then?’ Paul always wondered what it was about Vulcan society that made them so capable of expressing so many thoughts with a single shift of muscle.

Paul reached up to rub at his sore arm, probing gingerly at the skin beneath his short sleeve. “Think of it like… you know how memories are formed? At first, your hippocampus stores short term memories, your neurons not yet accustomed to the electrical patterns being formed by the memory.” He gestured towards his head and began tracing patterns on his temple with his finger. He moved his hand faster and faster, his finger following the pattern quicker each time. “Eventually, your neurons remember those patterns instinctively, and you can recall memories and words with zero hesitation at all, because your mind is just so used to calling on that specific information.” He dropped his hand back towards his arm.

They were smart people, and instantly realised what Paul was getting at. “So,” Tilly started. “You’re saying that it’s like, you’ve made the connection to the network so often that your mind and body have learned how to do it without needing the interface of the spore drive?”

Paul nodded, pleased that they were able to follow his line of thought. “Exactly. I’d theorised that if I surrounded myself by spores, I could just access that connection. Not jump, just… enter the network.”

Michael frowned at him in consternation. “You said that it was like you were engaging in astral travel in real space and time. Before, when you were trapped in the network after we jumped to the Terran universe, you described it like it was a world of its’ own, contained entirely within your own mind. What changed?"

Paul shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe this is the natural way to access the network – being able to navigate through it at will, in real space, rather than being forced into it as a way to protect my own mind?”

“Why do you keep rubbing at your arm, Lieutenant?” Tilly’s voice was sharp as she focused on the irregular action.

Gingerly, Paul pushed his short sleeve up to expose the entirety of his pale arm. “I… wasn’t the only one in the network.”

Michael and Tilly immediately reacted to both his words and the movement. Michael’s eyebrows shot up, while Tilly clapped her hands over her mouth in shock. Paul looked down to his arm, and as he had expected, there was a physical mark marring his skin.

It looked like a nasty, jagged scar, like an injury that had been badly healed. Paul himself had a similar scar on his leg – an injury sustained while hiking in his youth – but this injury was just _off._ Instead of being a collection of mottled whites and pinks like his other scar, there was a thick, black line scored in the centre of the scar tissue, with the colour seeping out into the skin around it. It was freezing cold to the touch, and upon holding his hand close, he could actually  _feel_ waves of hatred emanating from it. It carried the essence of the creature that he had encountered inside the network. Not only had the creature attempted to attack him, it had succeeded _and_ caused real, physical damage to his body.

“What could possibly do _that?”_  Tilly sounded utterly horrified. Her eyes didn’t stray from the mark, and her

“It was a monster,” Paul said. “I genuinely have no better word to describe it. It tried attacking my physical body – not the projection of my consciousness.” He tugged his sleeve back down, the movement causing pain to radiate from the mottled scar into the rest of his arm.

“You need to tell Doctor Pollard!” Tilly took a step towards him, her arms held out in front of her pleadingly. “Paul, you _promised_ that you’d come clean about this kind of thing!”

Oh. Tilly only ever dropped the titles when she was truly upset – most of the time, even when they were outside of the engineering room, she was too focused on her career to risk being insubordinate in that manner.

“There’s something else you’re not saying.” Michael’s arms were crossed tightly against her chest, and she seemed very disturbed by what she was seeing. “Something else happened in the network.”

Paul nodded, and couldn’t help smiling ever so slightly. “I saw Hugh. I know what you’re thinking – it wasn’t some manifestation of my grief, or something in the network trying to manipulate me.” He took a step towards them. “I know my husband, okay? It was him.”

He saw Michael and Tilly exchange a look between each other. He knew he sounded manic, but he didn’t care. For months, he’d been lost and drifting – lost without his partner and lost without a purpose or direction for his research, but now, he’d found a new source of motivation.

“That doesn’t explain why you shouldn’t go to Pollard! Maybe she can help you!”

Paul shook his head violently. “It’s exactly why I can’t go to Pollard. If she knows that I’m doing it on purpose, if there is something in the network capable of physically damaging me, she’d lock me up in a hot second.” He ran a hand through his hair, disrupting the careful style that he had just gelled it into. “Hugh’s trapped in the network with _whatever_ that thing is – and I’m going to get him out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i have written several thousand words of prose when I really should be writing academic papers about ancient rome and medieval witchcraft
> 
> come yell at me on twitter, @wolfchasing


	3. Chapter 3

The questions from Michael and Tilly had come hard and fast.

“ _How_ is he still… alive _?”_ had been Tilly’s first question, which was understandable. She and Paul had been born, raised, and educated on Earth – a planet where there was still some suspicion about psionic abilities, where the concept of life after death had been endlessly debated and shot down for literal millennia. To be suddenly confronted with the idea that one’s consciousness could continue to exist without the confines of a body was disturbing.

“I don’t know,” Paul had said. He had his suspicions, but he didn’t want to voice them – the implications were too confronting to contemplate at that point in time.

Michael had been taking the concept of Hugh’s continued existence much better than Tilly had. Paul supposed it might have had something to do with her Vulcan upbringing, and her own experience of being brought back to life via metaphysical means.

“Why is he still around?” Was Michael’s question. “It’s not like his death was particularly… unique.” The sound of Hugh’s neck snapping echoed inside of Paul’s head, and he took a shuddering breath to try and force the memory away. Michael’s hand reached up to absently rub at her throat, and Paul could tell that she was trying to shake off her own Ash Tyler-related demons. “He wasn’t connected to the network, so why would it ensnare him and not anyone else who died on our ship?”

Panic began to grip his chest in a tight hold as he followed the line of thought to it’s logical conclusion. The only connection that Hugh had to the network was _him._ His lover had been murdered suddenly and brutally, and the only witness was Paul himself – who had, at that point, been stuck in limbo between lucidity and complete immersion in the network. If it had been his intervention that had prevented Hugh being lost forever… he didn’t know if he wanted to be sick or to jump for joy.

The knowledge of Hugh still being around was intoxicating and beautiful, but it simultaneously sickened him. To think that his love was trapped, unable to move on or do whatever happened to people when they died was horrible. To even contemplate that he might have had the power to snatch up someone’s consciousness like that was truly terrifying.

He didn’t want that. What sane person would want that, to be able to dictate whether a person could linger like that?

The world began to swim before Paul’s eyes and he felt himself take a stumbling step. He would have ploughed headfirst into his coffee table had two sets of arms not wrapped themselves around his sides.

He blinked the black spots out of his vision, finding Michael and Tilly supporting him on each side of his body. “I think,” Tilly said definitively. “You need to get some real sleep – not just some mushroom inspired unconsciousness.”

He was very suddenly feeling the impact of the emotional stress and the physical exhaustion – his entire body felt like rubber and his eyes were already half closed. He nodded absently and began walking towards his bed, Michael and Tilly supporting him all the way.

He fell onto the covers still in his undershirt and trousers, with his heavy Starfleet regulation boots still laced up to his mid-calf. “Tilly,” he murmured as his head hit the pillow. He could feel one of his friends trying to tug his boots off. “Go to bed. I’ll be fine.”

“Pollard will have my head if I leave now, sir,” she stage-whispered from the general direction of his feet – but even her cheerful whisper sounded completely exhausted. “I’ll sleep on your couch if that’s okay.”

Paul let out a vague noise of dissent into his pillow, frustrated by her hovering. He was a grown man, damn it. He made a move to push himself up from his bed but was halted by a gentle hand between his shoulder blades.

“Go to sleep, Paul,” Michael said, her voice ringing with the authority of her rank as commander. “I will conduct preliminary research while you both rest.”

Exhausted, he collapsed onto his pillow and surrendered himself to sleep.

* * *

 

He knew something was wrong before he even opened his eyes. Instead of the expected silence of his quarters, he could hear the heavy sounds of a Kasseelian aria playing at full volume over the computer’s speakers.

He jerked up rapidly, hurling himself out of bed, arms coming up to defend himself from any possible threat.

He was still in his quarters, but it was different. Usually his room was quite dark and dim, like the rest of the ship, but now it was illuminated by some soft, sourceless glow. Glowing blue spores floated around the room, swirling on the eddies of a breeze that only they could feel. Everything was neater and cleaner than it had been in months, and all around the room he could see signs of co-habitation.

It was exactly how they had left their room before that final jump into the Terran universe.

“Paul.”

Sitting in a low-backed loveseat was Hugh. He was staring straight at Paul, a sad expression on his face.

Paul slowly moved towards the loveseat, never taking his eyes off of Hugh’s. The instant he was in range, Hugh’s hand snaked out to grab his own, gripping Paul’s so tightly that it was almost painful. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Paul fell into the seat beside his lover, his other hand coming up to caress his face.

Their lips crashed together, desperate and fierce. It was a strong contrast to the final, tender kiss they had shared while in the mirror universe’s network. This was nothing but desperation; skin seeking skin, trying to find comfort in their contact. Both of Paul’s hands had come up to frame Hugh’s face, running his fingers over his ears, through the short bristles of his shaved hair, down his neck. Hugh’s hands were roaming up Paul’s arms, over his shoulders, and down his back, before settling in their familiar place on Paul’s waist, his thumbs and fingers digging somewhat painfully into the soft skin that laid there.

The familiar touch grounded Paul, making his heart swell with simultaneous joy and pain. He never thought that he’d get to feel that again – the feeling of Hugh’s strong, gentle hands squeezing his soft belly. The touch alone was bringing back memories of Hugh poking, tickling, and kissing his stomach, laughing together at Paul’s instinctive twitches from the touch.

Reluctantly, they pulled apart, resting their foreheads together so they could look into each other’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Paul whispered, running his thumb across Hugh’s cheekbone. Hugh pushed into the touch, closing his eyes ever so slightly. “I think it’s my fault you’re trapped in here.”

Hugh’s eyes snapped open, and he reared back, looking insulted and angry for some reason. Paul felt dread pooling in his stomach because he recognised that look – it was the one that Hugh would send in his direction whenever Paul had messed up in some major way.

“Don’t you _ever_ dare apologise for saving my life.” Hugh’s hands came up to cup Paul’s as they framed his face. “Yes. _You_ pulled me from my body before I could die. I don’t know how you did it or how it’s even possible – but you _saved me._ ” Hugh shook his head in dismay, as if Paul was some particularly dense cadet. “On what planet is being dead a preferred alternative? In what fucking universe would I ever want to leave you alone? Better stuck in here than useless and _dead.”_

“But, if I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be trapped, you could… move on.”

“If you hadn’t, I would be _truly_ dead. You would still be trapped in the decaying mycelial network. The Discovery would still be in the mirror universe. You would be dead.” Hugh rubbed Paul’s forearms, sending goose bumps down his body. “You aren’t getting it, Paul. I don’t want to move on. I didn’t want to die. This is far preferable to the alternative, okay?”

Paul nodded mutely, closing his eyes and breathing in deep, trying to memorise the unique smell of Hugh – of his aftershave, his cologne, the unique musk that only Hugh had.

“Okay,” Paul said quietly, and then, “Okay.” A second time, but stronger. He opened his eyes and tilted his head up, and he could feel a new sense of determination overtake him. Looking into Hugh’s eyes, he could see the same drive reflected back at him. “I need answers. What is this place? Why does it feel different?”

And it truly did – now that he was focussing and setting the emotions aside, he could tell that _this_ time in the mycelial network was vastly different to the last time he had entered the network. He hadn’t lain down in bed with the intent of entering the network – he hadn’t felt the familiar rush, hadn’t pulled himself along the familiar pathways, and hadn’t _wanted_ to enter before he was ready to do so. It was more like the time he had been stuck in the coma in the mirror universe. Everything moved _differently –_ like it was floating through the space, glowing with some internal ethereal light.

 “I don’t know,” Hugh said, shrugging. “You know I’m no expert on your subject, but…”

Paul scoffed. “Hugh, please, you’re the only person other than Straal that ever gave a damn about understanding my research. You know more than you think.”

Hugh rolled his eyes and let out a huff of exasperation. “Fine. I think that maybe this is a… miniature pocket of the network that only you can access. A place where your mind can go whenever it needs to heal.”

Paul frowned as he followed the thought. “This is the space that I – no, that _we_ created when I was stuck before, that you led me towards. But why am I back here? I’m not injured or in a coma or anything.”

Hugh pursed his lips and raised his arms in another shrug, but Paul’s mind was working overtime. He hadn’t accessed this space in the six months since Hugh’s death, and he hadn’t actually accessed the network at _all_ since jumping out of the caves beneath Qo’noS – and even then, it had been with the Discovery assisting and guiding him. Only one thing had changed in that time.

“It’s because I accessed the network deliberately!” Paul leapt up and began pacing back and forth in front of the loveseat. “Think about it, months and months without touching the network, and just letting that connection build up pressure. I access the network once, without technology, as it’s supposed to be accessed and it’s like…”

“Like a dam bursting.”

Paul was absolutely thrilled – finally, he was learning more about his body and what he was capable of. He swung around to face Hugh, absolutely elated to share this with him, but halted at the look on his husband’s face. Hugh looked completely wrecked.

“What’s the matter with you?” Paul sat down on the seat again, taking Hugh’s hand into his own. “This is groundbreaking, why are you looking like that?”

Hugh looked at him like he was an absolute moron. “Paul. The level of damage that was done to your brain while you were trapped in here before was substantial.” Hugh shook his head. “Every ten minutes you were under, just a little bit more of your white matter was eaten away.” The urgency and fear in his eyes was a little bit terrifying to Paul. Hugh gripped Paul’s hands so tightly that it felt like he was receiving hairline fractures in his bones. “You can’t keep coming back, Paul.”

Paul frowned at him. He could feel his familiar exasperation with Hugh’s overly concerned doctoring building up. Had this been a normal situation, he would have shot back with a pithy ‘you can’t tell me what to do,’ which would have been followed up by Hugh’s increasingly absurd and flirtatious attempts to get Paul to take care of himself - but the seriousness and urgency in Hugh’s face was just a little bit terrifying, and it halted Paul’s usual reply in his tracks.

“But you’re here,” Paul said simply. There was no other response he could give. The thought of leaving Hugh alone at all was so utterly alien to him. “You’re here and you’re trapped and… even if I tried to fight it, subconsciously, I’d know you’re here and I can get to you, I don’t think I could stop myself.” He scrubbed furiously at his eyes with the hand that wasn’t encased by Hugh’s. “I don’t want to hurt myself, I truly don’t. But nothing could keep me away from you, Hugh.”

The love and fear on Hugh’s face was breaking Paul’s heart, but it was very quickly replaced by determination. “Fine. If you won’t be able to stop coming here, then I’ve got to get out. If only to save your stupid, beautiful brain.” He reached out and brushed his hand down the side of Paul’s face, and Paul raised Hugh’s other hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to his skin.

They sat like that for a few moments, enjoying the contact, the company, and the solace that it provided.

_BANG._

The massive metallic sound made them both jump and face the door to their quarters. Months of living on an active warship had Paul instinctively reaching down to his hip for his phaser – but of course, there was nothing there to arm himself with.

“It found you.” Hugh tried to stand between Paul and the door, as if to shield him from whatever it was.

“How?” Paul demanded, and he couldn’t help the shiver of fear run down his spine as he remembered the broiling mass of darkness that had attacked him earlier. “I thought that this was essentially a section of the network contained within my own mind? How could it get here? What even is it?”

“I don’t know, Paul!” Hugh’s back was to Paul, his attention fixed on the door.

_BANG._

“It’s been in the network for almost as long as I have,” Hugh said quickly as he began to back up, pushing Paul back towards their bed. “It appeared after you got out, and it’s been… toying with me ever since.”

“ _Toying_ with you? What do you mean?” Paul said, but Hugh didn’t answer. “Hugh, what has it been doing?”

 “It doesn’t matter.” The backs of Paul’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he fell down onto the rumpled covers. Hugh spun around and looked down at Paul with a fearful expression. “It never hurt me, and it was just… following me around in the network. And since I was following _you,_ it started to fixate on you. It was just… benign. Nasty, like a tumour.”

He pushed at Paul’s chest and gestured for him to move up the bed towards the pillows. Paul began to crawl backwards to get back into the position he’d been in when he had woken up.

“It didn’t get malicious until you entered the network yesterday, Paul. I’d never seen it attack like that.” Hugh climbed onto the bed and began to crawl up towards Paul. It was like a vicious mockery of any of Hugh’s attempts at foreplay – but instead of the typical coy look of seduction that Paul was used to seeing from this position, there was nothing but consternation and fear on Hugh’s face. Once he was top of Paul, he reached up and wrapped his hand around Paul’s upper arm, right on top of the mottled scar that the beast had left on his bicep. “It’s swiped at people before, but it’s never made contact like _this._ ”

 _BANG._ The sound echoed around their quarters, louder than it had been before. The walls shook from the impact, and Paul got the impression that with every hit, it was closer to getting inside.

"What does it even want?

“You need to go.” Paul looked up into Hugh’s eyes at his words, hating the terror that he was seeing on his partner’s face. Instinctively, he captured Hugh’s lips with his own in a fierce kiss, wanting to do nothing but remove that expression from Hugh’s face.

_BANG._

“What can I do?” Paul whispered when they broke apart. “What could I possibly do from the outside?”

Hugh smiled, but it was brittle. “I don’t think we can do anything until we figure out what _this_ is. But I believe in you, Paul. You’ll figure it out.” His hand came up to stroke the side of Paul’s face. “Close your eyes.”

 _BANG._ This time, the sound was accompanied by a terrifying roar. It sounded like it was shouting out his name, every syllable of the sound  _"STAMETS!"_ filled with hatred and frustration. It almost sounded familiar.

With one last lingering look at Hugh’s face, Paul blinked hard. Between closing his eyes and opening them again, everything changed. The blinding illumination of the mycelial network was replaced by the dim metallic light of his real quarters. The recording of the opera stopped, replaced by the sounds of Tilly's snoring. The spores disappeared, and so did the familiar weight of Hugh's body on top of his.

The only thing he was left with was the lingering sensation of Hugh’s hand on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya gorl has had an absolute whirlwind of a few weeks at uni and work holy shit.
> 
> i wish this chapter was longer and had ten thousand percent more fluff but i can not resist ending chapters like this
> 
> anyway, big big big love to everyone who dropped a review on chapter 1 and 2. y'all are the reason im still writing and havent lost interest like i have with anything else i've ever written. expect some actual moving forward of the plot instead of this exploratory "but what is it??!!?!" stuff next chapter lmao

**Author's Note:**

> hello i am a big gay classics dork who can't help but insert mythological concepts and themes into the things i consume :-)
> 
> if ur curious about what exactly a katabasis is................ pls ask, i will never shut up. i have examples and scholarly references.


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